Aimee, I meant to mention yesterday that I my boss shared an office space with another lawyer. When they moved out, they wanted to get rid of the big copy machine we had. I arranged with a friend of my boss's to donate it to his wife's church (everyone said ok to this). At the last minute the other lawyer said he wanted the copier to keep in his garage. I could feel the bad karma swirling around me. Screw the treadmill. Maybe there's some reason in the universe you weren't meant to have it yet.

I totally agree with you about turning the news off, Kimberley. It's good to know what's going on, but it can be overwhelming in too high a dosage. I could use a nap myself this afternoon.

Jill, three jobs?? You always did have amazing energy. You have to pay for lbs gained at Tops? Wow, that would be dangerous for me, heh heh.

Good for you re: all the clothes, Sara. I have to dig through my drawers and get rid of a few older, TOO BIG YEAH things. I bought myself a bathing suit this summer which was a huge step for me. I'd like to start swimming at the Y.

Hey, I caught a foul ball at the game yesterday! How cool is that. And we won. Life is good....

It's Saturday morning here in Brooklyn. Seventy-one degrees, sunny. The cat is asleep in the bedroom and I just popped on the computer to say hi before I hit the shower.

My wish for everyone for this day, is for you to take time to take care of yourselves mentally, spiritually and physically. It's not selfish to do that, it's the opposite of selfish, because you can only give to others if you're full yourself. Ok, I know that sounds Dr. Phil-ish, but I do believe it.

And one extra thought, you're much more powerful to make change in your own life and in the lives of others than you think. I saw a news story yesterday where a 12-year-old boy said just about those words and I thought he sounded very wise for his age.

Not much to report here...just been hanging out with Howie this week and enjoying the downtime. This coming Saturday is our Biggest Loser 2 party and I've got to get crackin' on the House Party website stuff. See the Biggest Loser 2 House Party link in the 100lb Club forum for more info.

__________________ I was down to 199, but got back up to 280. Know what? No matter what my emotions, hormones and taste buds say, I won't ever give up!

Here I am!!! I haven't been posting here, because I haven't much internet time anymore with all my exercise, my new work patterns, and trying to retain some semblance of a home life with the dh. I keep trying to convince him that if he exercised with me he would see more of me, but I haven't quite convinced him yet!!!

I took your advice today Marge (pretty good seeing as I hadn't read your post!!!!) and had a "me day". I went to the gym, and met up with a lady I see there, who asked me if I would like to go out with her some time, as she hasn't any female friends!!! I don't have many either, so I was really happy, she's a lovely lady, a stick insect, but we won't hold that against her!!!

I have stayed on plan with my eating this weekend, yay me!!! I went tot he shops and bought lots of fruit, so I have no excuses. I bought some pears that are so sweet, and they kinda taste like roses.

I have finally gotten into the swing of my new job. I am working in a specialist back pain unit of the largest health insurer in the UK. The team is made up of nurses and advisors (I'm an advisor) and I am learning so much. It's a lot more relaxed than my previous job, and more money!!! Gotta love that!!!!

Hey from Seattle!! We are having a fun weekend away... the first day we went to the lego store where I bought pink lego to build a picture frame... it shall be interesting! Today we hit up Bumbershoot, which is an arts festival thing, we ate too much, drank too little water, and got very wet when it started to down pour. It was lucky that I'm from around here... I brought an umbrella!

I am completely shocked, suprised, relieved I suppose... the gas prices? Cheap! We are paying nearly 5 dollars a gallon in Canada, so my mom is definitely going to fill her car all up!! That margin between Canadian and American gas prices are getting closer and closer, which is bad for you gals... but it's nice to see some equality on my part!

Tomorrow we are going to Bellevue Mall which is a higher class mall in this area, and we'll do some shopping (main event is Sephora, and Lululemon), and late in the day we'll head back to Vancouver. Hope you are all having a great weekend!!

Good for you re: the job situation. Great news. I've been doing lots of thinking along those lines but not much action! I don't have enough girl friends, so I should follow you're lead with that.

It does seem like the exercise takes up a lot of my time too. I enjoy it, and I'm seeing the results. Happy with that. Great to hear from you.

Aimee, I have some friends from France living here now, and the gas prices there are so through the roof that $3 to $4 a gallon sounds like a blast from the far flung past for them! Enjoy all the shopping! It's been so long since I've been to a mall! Hey, I want to shop too. (Marge looks in her wallet and thinks maybe a quiet day with the cat and bf might be the better choice )

Kimberley, that's great! I saw the tail end of that show last season. You should have a really fun time doing that.

We went to the park today and spent a few hours enjoying the nice weather on this federal holiday. We've been renting the HBO DVDs of Six Feet Under, love that show.

Wow, I had to catch up on reading here this morning--I normally just find my common threads by checking my "subscribed threads" under User CP, but since I hadn't posted on this new September one yet, it wasn't showing up! But I am here now, and great to see everyone posting over the weekend (unlike me)!

As for my weekend, it was fine until yesterday when I had a minor mental breakdown. I got so mad at myself for my horrible eating habits all weekend long (since Thursday night, really) that I just flopped on my bed and cried. Jeff had no clue what was going on, and I was crying too much to try to explain it to him. He was a good boy, though--just hugged me while I cried and tried to get me to tell him what was wrong. I eventually (after I had stopped crying) told him I was angry with myself for letting myself eat out so many times over the weekend. Of course, that doesn't really register with him as reason to cry, so I'm sure he still thinks I'm on drugs. His response was, "Well, if you didn't want to eat out, you should have said something and we could have stayed here." No, not understanding. Having been well under 200 pounds his whole life, I wouldn't really expect him to understand what it's like for a woman who has been over 300 pounds.

So here I am today, 6 pounds higher than on Thursday morning. How insane. I know some of it is water form the extra sodium of eating out, blah blah blah, but still, it's pretty ridiculous. To make up for it (at least a little bit), I have drastically cut my calories back for today and have planned less than 15 carbs for the whole day. I will be at the gym between jobs, and I am already sucking down the water. I know I won't lose those 6 pounds all by Thursday night's weigh-in, but I can at least make the effort to rid myself of the damage as quickly as possible. This was SO far beyond my typical off-plan weekend (and it wasn't even supposed to be an off-plan weekend at all!). I think I caught a major case of the "I'm so sick of restricting myself so now I'm just going to eat whatever I want and say screw the diet because it's too much work" bug (yes, that is proper medical terminology ).

Oh, and about the jobs--once I see how much I can make with the editing from home position, I'll hopefully be able to quit Ruby Tuesday, so I won't be working the 3 jobs for very long--just until I get a feel for the new editing thing. Then I'll be back down to 2

Well, sorry to have made this kinda long. I was in a bad place over the weekend, but I am back now. Happens to the best of us, right? Started off on the right foot, though, with my egg white and slasa omelette this morning and packed meals for the rest of the day. Hope everyone else is in a cheerier place--catch ya'll later!

Oh, Jill, I can tell you one thing, I could SO relate to your post. I had the same problem this weekend because we went out so many times. When we go out my brain goes into TREAT mode. Afterwards I say to myself, what were you thinking??

I try to look at it this way, I'm turning around a lifetime of thinking patterns and habits. It doesn't happen in a day. Even after I've lost all the weight I want to, there are going to be times when I overindulge and have to compensate. I actually just go back on my regular pattern and don't try to make up for it because I figure I'm trying to get the good pattern and habits in my brain, not get myself into thinking I'm even more deprived, and don't want to feel like I'm beating myself up for a slip. I know everyone has different past experiences and copes with it differently.

It does make me feel down when I go so off program, like I'm letting myself down after a lot of hard work. At the same time, I really have come a LONG way in a couple of years. So you can pat yourself on your back for all you've done, Jill. Believe me, I know what it feels like to be over 300 lbs. Take it easy, Chickie.

It was a minute, but detrimental, shift in the Earth's rotation that did us all in! That has to be it!! I had a munchy weekend, too. I didn't go all out, didn't stuff myself, but I was over my calories three days.

I agree with Marge about not trying to make up for bad days. That's not how life works, you know? If we make mistakes, we have to just go on. If the weight loss is stymied for a week or two, that's just the repercussion. Like she said, it'd be too easy to feel deprived and like you're beating yourself up for a slip.

All we can do is take the bitter medicine -- realizing it really is medicine, that reality check -- and go on doing the right things. It'll come off, and it will do so without messing with our minds, you know?

((((big hugs!!!))))

__________________ I was down to 199, but got back up to 280. Know what? No matter what my emotions, hormones and taste buds say, I won't ever give up!

Well, yes and no. I like to think of calories as being similar to money. I "spend" my allowed calories each day on whatever foods I choose. Just as I would pinch pennies for a few days after a major unexpected expense, I will cut back on calories for a few days to make up for the horrific weekend of eating. Just like money, I have to learn to budget and manage my calories to get the most bang for my buck. Moving on as if the bad weekend hadn't happened at all makes me feel like I'm not making an effort to correct it, and I need to feel that effort; I need to conserve to help make up for the wild spending spree That money (calories) will never reappear for me to use again, so I need to make sure to balance things out as best I can. Maybe I am wrong, but that is how I feel about it